Lots more head scratching about engine positioning and chargecooling. Thanks to email from John I've turned the compressor around slightly, which helps to give a little more clearance for the actuator. It will still need some fine tuning but it's getting better. The actuator arm has an adjustable length, which is used to control the opening of the wastegate, if this is wrong you either lose power or worse pop your turbo. Since I was changing the angle I took a number of measurements to allow me to compensate for the change in the effective length, in this case it was a couple of turns of the thread to lengthen it back out. Obviously once the car is back on the road I'll get to a rolling road and have it fine tuned.
I also went about making a proper relay and fuse mount to tidy up the additional fuse/relay that's used for the second fuel pump and to provide a fuse for the cigarette lighter, which will be used to power laptops/data-logging/gps etc. I haven't yet settled on a position for it but I do need to leave space for a potential charge-cooler water pump relay. More of this later.
I dropped the scuttle into place to help provide a point of reference for some of the other things that are being located, it also helped me spot a couple of small problems that I can rectify while they're still easy to fix. The scuttle actually ended up an inch further back than the guesstimates I'm marked on some tape. One of the discoveries was that the ECU shelf I made would prevent the passenger from opening the heater vent in their footwell. The easiest thing to do here is to move the shelf an inch or so over to the left. I could cut a chunk out of the shelf or modify the heater outlet but neither of them would be a terribly clean solution.
I've been doing a fair amount of research into chargecoolers recently and the general indications are that they'd be perfect for a seven. They will smooth the spikes of temperature and mean the rad can be located anywhere convenient. The trouble is they're not cheap and add complexity. A lot of people use oil coolers as the radiators for the charge coolers but the indications are I'd need a pretty big one, which still leaves the problem of where to put it. I should be having a discussion with Pace on Monday which should give me some more clarity on what I need.
I managed to track down the intermediate plate that stops muck from entering the bellhousing. Ford in Cambridge claimed that you couldn't get such a thing but Richard had got one for his Dax from there. So I went to Ford in Ely and got an Escort cosworth plate. Unfortunately it's not quite the right part so the lower mounting holes for the starter motor don't line up and the profile is wrong for the bottom of the bellhousing. An hour or so fettling later it was a perfect fit and I sprayed it back up and fitted it.
One of the problems I've found is that the pre-drilled engine mounts put the engine an inch further forward than it should be which isn't helping the fit. Unfortunately if I just move it back then the bellhousing to foul the chassis rails. There are a number of reasons why this could be and hopefully once I understand the cause I may work out what the solution is.
I spent some time doing some investigations into the engine position, it looks like the chassis is slightly different. The chassis members are in very different positions in the engine bay, presumably as a result of refinement in the design of the chassis over the years. I don't think any of the changes are critical although it is going to be very tight in a couple of areas. The solution to the engine position problem appears to be do drill some new mounting holes and to manipulate the panels in he footwells to fit the clutch release arm.
The first thing to do was to whip the engine and gearbox out, with them out and seperated I removed the release arm and took it to the grinder where I shaved a couple of mm off the end. It won't affect the strength but does give me an extra 2mm. The next job was to file back the leading edges of the tunnel sides, which gave another 2-3mm. Because the release arm is now going to be swinging in the tunnel I had to make an indentation in the passenger side panel to give an arc of clearance. The easiest way to do this was to hammer the basic shape with a slighly rounded headed hammer, then to move onto a firm rubber mallet to smooth it out.
In total the engine was in and out about 4 or 5 times and the process took over 5 hours but it's finally done, all that needs doing is the engine mounts drilling.
The last thing I did was to cut off the mounting brackets on the front of the chassis and paint them back over. I'd been a little reluctant to do this in case they were needed for my nosecone mounting but after chatting to Tim Hoverd it was obvious that these realy were the mounts for the standard (non ducted) radiator and just got in the way of the ducting. I've left the lower mount on as this is going to be used for the nosecone.
Drilled the holes for the engine mounts and bolted those into place, then touched up the couple of scratches in the paint that I'd made. It may not seem much but this is a major milestone and barring a few more jobs that will be easier to do at this stage I can put the bodywork on now.
I had a brainwave about the ECU tray, rather than drilling the rivets out of the chassis and making new holes I moved the hinges on the tray instead. Obvious really when you think about it, this is a prime example of why, when you find a problem and start swearing it's best to just leave it, move onto something else and come back once you've subconciously worked through the problem.
With the aproach of the bodywork I decided to hook up some of the fuel hosing since the access will be that much poorer once it's on. While I was doing this I noticed that the swirl pot was just about touching one of the screws for the fuel cutout switch. So out came the swirl pot, the mounts were filed out and that was another potential problem resolved.
The final job today was to mount the coil. I thought that I'd double checked it for clearance but once it was on it became apparent that the ignition lead would foul the swirl pot, so I used a rivet to fill each hole and swung the coil through 90° It will still be tight up against the battery but it should be ok.
Decided to make up a replacement for one of the ali cooling pipes that was a little worn. The pipe I'd got is proper 5/8" ali rather than the thinwall stuff that was on there so despite having a proper pipe bender it was mighty hard work. It's probably no heavier than the copper I used on the tiger but it looks a lot better and could, if so desired, become a structural item! I still need to do some fine tuning on it though.
Decided to have a go at patching up some of the extra holes that were in the scuttle. I duly did this but the resin really didn't seem to want to go off, despite me using the upper limits of the amount of hardner the instructions said to use. Past experience had shown me that their estimates seem to be a little low, particularly if you're adding colour to the gel, which I was. The matting I'd put in from the back was begining to hold so I was keen to put some gel on the top to finish but still after 30 minutes (supposed 20minute setting time) the resin was still too runny, so I added some more hardner, another 10 minutes pass, so I added some more and waited. When I next went to check on the resin it was just perfect, I painted a coat on and even as I was painting I could feel it hardening and within 30 seconds it had gone from the consistancy of ketchup to that of set silicone sealant! Luckily I got just enough on in time.
I left the resin a respectful time to harden properly then sanded it
down with 80, 120, 280 and finally 400 grit wet and dry before taking
the compounder and some G4 paste to it. The result is pretty good,
the colour is slightly darker than it should be because I used a little
too much colouring and the large hole has a couple of ripples in it.
I'm not too bothered about that really though since the aim was to
properly repair the bodges that had been made previously. This will all
be covered by the windscreen support in any case but it does give me
confidence to work on some of the other areas that I will have to soon.
Had a long chat to Pace about chargecooling and intercooling and went through all the possible options for me:
Finished bending the new coolant pipe and fitted it into place, I wasn't
joking when I said that it could become structural!
The markings you can see on it were there to mark
where the bends needed to be, I tended to mark both start, end and
inside edge to make sure I got the bend in the right place on the
pipe bender. Despite all this prep this sort of complex fabrication
will never be a perfect fit first time, with this in mind I made sure
I left an extra few inches on either end which would be cut down post
modification. These extra few inches also act as sacrificial parts
to locate it in the bender. The final tweaks to the angles were
carried out by hand as it's difficult to make small mods to the tubes
and it's even more difficult to re-bend pipes once they've got a
curve in them.
After much deliberation I scrapped all my work on the breather system and mounted the catch tank against the footwell. My previous solution just wasn't neat enough and was going to cause a few rattles, right now it's easy to fix and there's more room by the throttle body than I had thought so the seperator can go there.
Some discussion on one of the mailing lists turned to rose joints, and how it's very easy to pop the ball out compared to pulling the joint itself out. The recommendation was to use large washers so that this sort of failure was non catastrophic. Spurred on by this I double checked all my joints and discovered one that only had a small washer, so that was quickly put right.
Removed the steering rack, the last of the front-end parts that would prevent the bodywork going on.
Tried to connect the reverse switch up but the wiring is too short, so I replaced the wires on the gearbox with some longer ones, which if anything have a little too much reach. That does mean I can route them neatly, out of the way of anything that might move. The small amount of space available made it very hard work and had me wishing I'd noticed that it was going to be a problem before I bolted the box in.
Did some more accurate measurements for the intercooler, it looks like I can get a 280x300mm core in there, with one of Pace's 86mm cores I can get over 7 litres of core in, almost double the current setup. John has also pointed out that if I mount it correctly the fan I was planning to install will blow some cool air into the engine bay, which has to be good. It would make the install a little more complex but in theory it sounds good.
After re-reading Tim's build
diary, I realised that I should really put the fuel lines in
place. I had planned to do this when I got the car off the trestles
but it is far easier to do it now, it just needs a spacer made up
so that the lines don't get crushed. For this I used a length of
2x1" scrap wood and chiselled out a channel for the pipework to
rest in. Then I used Tim's hoist to lift up the rear of the car by
the rollbar, which is a useful test since that's how the car will have
to come off the trestles that way. With that done I could put the
pipework in place. In the end I had to reroute the rear brake line
slightly and shorten it so that it came up at the master cylinder.
With the latest plans for the intercooler and fan assistance I'll
need another relay so made up the relevant wiring and used loom
tape to wrap it up properly. It takes a little time to do but
it's not difficult, I really don't know why more people don't wrap their own looms. I then struggled for some time trying to find a
sensible place to locate the two relay sockets. The obvious places
upder the dash are all full and the free spaces are all inaccesable.
It looks like I might have to do something daft like velcro them to
the top of the ECU! Of course I also need to find space on the
dash for an extra switch for the fan.
I'd been wondering for some time how best to mount the oil seperator,
well I finally decided to make up a mount from some ali plate that
I had lying around. This would sit on the top chassis rail, rivnutted
in place, with a cutout for the seperator. I then welded in a 2" long
semi-circular support, lined with foam, gave it a "lip", into which I
cut an insert to locate a jubilee clip. I need to polish it up and I
can't fasten it in place until the bodywork is on but it seems mighty
solid.
Finally found a location for the relays behind one of the heater ducts. It's not a nice position but it does mean that I can reuse the holes already in the scuttle. I do need to do a little more thinking about the wiring before I locate the power socket though.
Fastened in the handbrake cable, went to plug in the switch and then realised that the switch has gone walkies. Searched in vain but managed to tidy up the garage in the process. Tried to look at locating the clutch cable but unfortunately the westfield supplied one is just too short.
After having a nagging feeling I was missing something I rechecked the connections I'd done to the swirl pot, lo and behold I had to swap two of the pipes around. Then moved onto fitting the new brake hoses at the back.
Tried to fit the clutch cable, only to discover that the old one was siezed and irreparable and the new one westfield supplied was way too short. On talking to Westfield it appears that most of their cars use the short one (QH1057) and that the long on is a bit special, I need to phone them back to talk to Mark who apparently knows how special it is. I also decided that I really should be able to fit the suspension back on with the engine in place so set about fitting the starter back in place. Unfotunately the solenoid cable was a shade too short so had to extend that.
Polished up the seperator mount, I'd run out of 280grit paper so I wasn't able to get all the marks out but it's reasonably shiny, certainly sufficiently shiny for this stage of the build.
Spoke to Mark at westfield, apparently the clutch cable is from a left hand drive, 2WD saphire cosworth. I find it a little odd because the driver and the release arm will both be on the same side so the cable should be shorter. However I'm in no position to argue right now. Ford have managed to track one down, which is coming in from Germany in the next week or so. Fingers crossed.
After talking to Gavin at redline the recommendation is to use their MTL in the T5 gearbox. Ford say to use ATF but that is a hydraulic fluid rather than a gear oil so isn't really ideal. The MTL satisfies all the requirements for an ATF but is a proper gear oil, it's not cheap but thanks to the guys at Fluke it's not quite as painfull as it might otherwise be. The oil duly arrived today and looks and smells rather like runny Raspberry jam, I shan't be taste testing it though.
I've made an inspection cover for access to the gearbox filler but a chassis rail stops me from getting a socket in completely straight. The plug came out easily enough though and I used some spare heater hose jubilee clipped to the oil bottle, with a bit of fuel hose attached to the end to pour/squeeze the oil into the gearbox. It takes a while to do but it allows you to get the oil in there without having to take the box out. The next job was to get the plug back in, which proved to be the most difficult part of the job.
John had sent me a tool that you can use from the tunnel side and get a spanner on but even that was too large for the narrow tunnel. In the end I had to sit under the car, working blind gripping the plug between the fingers of one hand to locate it in the thread and using the other hand to shuffle it round until it started to screw in. With the trickle of excess oil this process was incredibly fiddly and took about an hour to get right. Once it was in a thread or two I could get the socket through the inspection cover and tighten it up.
Now armed with a ridiculously expensive ford handbrake switch I attempted to drill some mounting holes in the handbrake for it. Unfortunately though the handbrake appears to be made of kryptonite and resisted decent drill bits, cutting fluid and my pillar drill for half an hour with nothing but a small indentation to show for it. I did however twig that I hadn't actually lost the switch because there wasn't anything connected originally. As long as there's a mechanism to test the brake fluid sensor (like the one fitted to the master clyinder) you don't need a warning light. I may well organise one in the future to ease any MOT grief though.
Tim, William and Hedley came round to help fit the body tub. Their assistance proved essential since the process appears to need at least 3 pairs of hands. According to Westfield the approved process for fitting the bodywork is to hook the front end over the chassis from above then drop the back end down. Unfortunately this doesn't work with a roll bar like mine fitted. The factory suggested that the solution to this is to slice the front lip of the GRP underneath, where the nosecone bolts on down the middle. This seems to be the only way to do it so very gingerly I took the jigsaw to it after previously marking it with masking tape.
With the front of the body free to part we were able to fit the rear of the car in the conventional westfield manner of hooking the back in place and then fitting the front. We took some time trimming back around the bootbox area and rollbar to get it to clear but after that the fit seems reasonable. Since I've got the new-style headlight mounts I need to cut some holes for the mounts to pop out of.
Despite the extra grief of getting the bodywork on and then of working on the car afterwards it does make getting the positioning easier as the front end provides an extra registration point.
With the winter approaching it's getting pretty chilly in the garage
so bought a couple of £8 2KW heaters from B&Q and they
certainly seem to do the job
Because the bodywork is tight around the suspension units some trimming is required. Westfield had, on the old body apparently done very little or possibly none, this made getting the suspension in and out a bit of a game. A big chunk also needs cutting out of the front top wishbone hole to give the clearance for the anti-roll bar.
First job was to make the headlamp mount holes so the bodywork can fit properly flush. The way I found easiest to do this was to mark the centre on the masking tape I was using to cover the area, then to drill with an old, blunt drill bit, in reverse to start with) through the centre, then to gradually expand the hole until a file would fit in. The peculiar drilling practice is to reduce the risk of chipping the gel coat. The other thing to do is to only file on the downstroke and not on the back one. With the lamp-holder cutouts in place the body fits a lot better and a superficial check of the measurements shows that the crucial numbers are within 1-2mm of those indicated by Westfield.
To trim back the lips on the suspension holes I filed back the worst of it, then went over it with 180, through to 320 grit wet and dry, using plenty of water. The original westfield holes were a real mess by comparison and for them to have shown that little care on a demonstrator is pretty shocking, it's a small thing but it just takes a little time to get right. The extra couple of mm it gives you means you don't have to force the wishbones through the holes and further lower the finish.
To give the ARB clearance the hole for the front of the top wishbone had to be extended forward by about 32mm, I did this with a pad saw for the horizontal cuts and then stitchdrilled the vertical one. Then a series of filing and sanding finished it off. The measurements were taken off the old GRP panel that I'd kept around, which has been extremely useful in allowing me to double-check what I'm doing to a greater extent than is possible from the photos I took.
More Filing, sanding, sanding, sanding. The upside is that the sanding at the front is now done although I may take a trip over it with an even finer wet and dry and some rubbing compound to make it sparkle. I've also started to clean up the edges of the GRP under the car, it may not be something that will get seen on a day to day basis but in the cramped engine bay it's nice not to be scratched by rough GRP when you're trying to work. Westfield also say that you should sand off all the locating chocks along the top of the bodywork to ensure a good fit. I haven't yet made a firm decision weather to attack the rest of the top edge, which has some mould marks on it, I probably will do that but I need to protect the engine from all the muck that will be thrown up by the compounder.
On the cable front it looks like speed cables is the only answer, to get them to make up a 3 foot long M18-M18 speedo cable and a 5'6" clutch cable. They may also have some ideas on heat shielding for it
Measured up the nose ducting and it looks like there is somewhere between 320 and 330mm of clearance depending on where you measure from for a fan on the radiator. There's 86mm of depth available from about 50mm up from the bottom and about 50mm at the bottom. This means that there are a few options:
| Model | Outside diameter | Depth | Current Draw | Flow | Approx price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pacet 10" profan | 300mm | 79mm | 10A | 890CFM | £75 |
| Kenlowe 10" | 273mm | 46mm | 6.2A | 965CFM | £80 |
| Pacet 11" profan | 320mm | 79mm | 10.3A | 1111CFM | £77 |
| Pacet 12" profan | 335mm | 86mm | 10.8A | 1373CFM | £80 |
| Kenlowe 13" | 320mm | 66mm | 11.9A | 1595CFM | £90 |
| Kenlowe 13" HD | 320mm | 66mm | 24.9A | 2104CFM | £110 |
After more digging it appears that the kenlowe doesn't have the fitting for threaded rods, but one could be added relatively easily. I've also discovered that the sucker one has a 75mm deep shroud all the way round it so all the advantages of that are gone. So pack to the Pacets. The 12" one is 335mm at it's widest point but the flats, which is where the critical dimension is, is only 320mm. The 11" meanwhile is only 295mm across the flats and both are pretty slim around the edges. So I think I'm back to the 12" pacet, which will fit with suitable fettling, fingers crossed.
Spoke to Speedy cables (01992 581600) and ordered a speedo cable with the correct fitting for the right-angle drive that I now have and a new clutch cable. The critical thing with the clutch cable seems to be the overal length (166cm) from the tip of the ball to the centre of the eyelet, and the length of the sheath from the tip of the adjuster to the shoulder of the insert at the pedal end (154cm). I've given up hope of finding a sensible ford part and Speedy seem helpfull and knowledgeable.
I also got a little further with the fans again. Dave Graham has some with threaded fittings so I might be back on with the kenlowe again. I also did some rough calculations, that the current fan must have no more than 950CFM of flow, so 1373CFM (pacet) 1595 (kenlowe) would both be a big improvement. But as readers will probably have guessed by now I'd rather completely anihilate a problem than just solve it. With that in mind engineering a 13" kenlowe has it's attractions. It also means that there's an easy upgrade to the 2100CFM heavy duty one.
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